"Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic or religious groups from a given territory by a more powerful ethnic group, with the intent of making it ethnically homogeneous. The forces applied may be various forms of forced migration (deportation, population transfer), intimidation, as well as mass murder and genocidal rape.
Ethnic cleansing is usually accompanied with the efforts to remove physical and cultural evidence of the targeted group in the territory through the destruction of homes, social centers, farms, and infrastructure, and by the desecration of monuments, cemeteries, and places of worship.
Initially used by the perpetrators during the Yugoslav Wars and cited in this context as a euphemism akin to that of Nazi Germany's "Final Solution", by the 1990s the term gained widespread acceptance due to journalism and the media's heightened use of the term in its generic meaning..."

"The High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein announced on December 20, 2017 that he wouldn’t be seeking a second mandate, due to the “appalling climate for advocacy” in the current geopolitical system. This comes as a worrying warning regarding the inability of the UN system to respond to multiplying conflicts across the globe, from Syria to Yemen, and from Myanmar to Iraq, with acts amounting to crimes against humanity.
His nomination in 2014— which was unanimously approved by all 193 member states of the UN General Assembly— was at the time perceived as a positive sign, showing a political will to strengthen human rights within the UN system.
The former professional diplomat, who has acquired a strong reputation as a fierce defender of human rights, never shied away from speaking truth even to the most powerful states within the UN. He was especially vocal in his criticism of Russian support to the Syrian government, and regularly denounced the Trump administration’s faux pas, from the travel bans against citizens from Muslim majority countries to the administration’s reaction to the demonstrations organized by white supremacists in Virginia..."

"By now, the main contours of the recent events in Rakhine State, in western Myanmar, are well-known. On August 25, an insurgent group calling itself the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) (previously Harakah al-Yaqin) attacked police posts in northern Rakhine, eliciting a broad counterinsurgency response from the Myanmar military that has displaced over 400,000 Rohingya people into Bangladesh. As in previous cycles of violence, the Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw, has reportedly targeted civilians in its “clearance operations,” leading to allegations of killings, rape, and the burning of villages. The UN’s human rights body has referred to this latest outbreak of violence as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”
The crisis in, and now, beyond, Rakhine is part of a much longer story of Rohingya oppression and persecution in Myanmar. This history has almost certainly contributed to the growth of the ARSA insurgency. In contrast to its own claims and those of the Myanmar government and media, ARSA comes across as a poor, small, and desperate movement, staging its attacks in a haphazard manner with homemade weapons like knives, swords, and sticks. The Myanmar government and Burmese media, however, have painted ARSA— and in many ways, Rohingya people more broadly— as part of global Islamist networks. In government communications, “extremist Bengali terrorists” is the favored term for the military’s current foe in Rakhine. Notably, the current crisis is unfolding under the government of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. She is Myanmar’s long-time opposition leader, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and the leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD). The NLD swept into power in the country’s nationwide elections of late 2015, the first open national elections in generations..."

"It’s difficult to imagine a more dramatic drop in public stature than the one Aung San Suu Kyi has experienced these past few weeks. No doubt due in large part to the overwhelming sense of betrayal felt by many, the Nobel Laureate has been harshly criticized for her country’s recent treatment of the Rohingya. Words like “Genocide” and “Ethnic Cleansing” have, to my mind, been aptly used to define the situation in Rakhine State. With hundreds dead and hundreds of thousands fleeing across the border to Bangladesh, it’s difficult to imagine a more systematic and purposeful deprivation of life and human rights currently unfolding. In the bloody corpus of human suffering, this chapter should without a doubt serve as the stereotypical example of ethnic cleansing.
To a large extent, the international media agrees with that statement. And yet, though their denunciation of recent events has been forceful, the condemnation of Aung San Suu Kyi has proved a qualified one especially in more analytically minded circles. As it turns out, holding a Nobel prize inclines people, specifically those who consider themselves thoughtful, towards leniency. This is why you’ll hear arguments claiming that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has no good options, that she must appease the military leaders who are truly behind this massacre, that she risks damaging Myanmar’s fledgling democracy with too strong a denunciation of violence, and that the majority Bamar would turn against her should she speak out too strongly in defense of the Rohingya. Suu Kyi’s chief moral failing, by these accounts, is one of inaction. Her silence, rather than any active effort to tangibly harm people, is the main cause for disappointment..."